Research has shown that giving disadvantaged families financial incentives to invest in their children could decrease socioeconomic inequality by enhancing human capital formation. Yet, within the household how are such gains achieved? We use a field experiment to investigate how parents allocate time when they receive financial incentives. We find that incentives increase investment in the target child. But, parents achieve these gains by substituting away from time spent with the child’s sibling(s). An unintended consequence is that intrahousehold inequality increases and aggregate gains from the program are overstated when focusing only on target children.

研究表明，给予弱势家庭经济激励以投资于他们的孩子可以通过加强人力资本形成来减少社会经济不平等。然而，在家庭内部，这些收益是如何实现的？我们使用实地实验来调查父母在获得经济奖励时如何分配时间。我们发现激励措施增加了对目标儿童的投资。但是，父母通过与孩子的兄弟姐妹一起度过的时间来实现这些收益。一个意想不到的后果是，当只关注目标儿童时，家庭内部不平等加剧，并且该计划的总收益被夸大了。